Page 16 - Top MMA News and Mixed Martial Arts Headlines

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Paige VanZant has quickly asserted herself as one of the brightest personalities and most promising young fighters of the strawweight division. While she didn't compete as a cast member of TUF 20, and thus didn't have a shot at winning the inaugural title, she put on a dazzling performance in her debut against Kailin Curran. Coupled with her willinness to embrace the spotlight, she's out-shown many of her peers, even without the platform of TUF to do it. In her media scrum at UFC 183, she went so far as to say she "dodged a bullet" by staying out of the TUF house, and given the attention she's gained, it's hard to disagree.

What Americans call soccer, Brazilians call it o jogo bonito - the beautiful game. When after the fight Anderson Silva fell to the mat, overcome, in tears. A concerned Nick Diaz came over and helped him up, and offered encouraging words. It was beautiful.
Earlier in the night, Tyron Woodley decisioned Kelvin Gastelum. Gastelum had missed weight so egreriously that the Nevada Athletic Commission fined him 30% of his purse, and apparently intended to give it to Woodley. Woodley declined it.
"He lost the fight, he missed weight, that's punishment enough," said Woodley as transcribed by Dave Doyle. "I don't want to take his money. He's a young kid, I know what it's like to barely have enough money to feed my family. I don't want his money."

The good thing about novelty fights is that they’re more about captivating imagination than they are any relevance to the title structure. Sometimes slugging ten shots of hard stuff and saying to hell with tomorrow is the only way to truly convince yourself of the moment. Sometimes you need Nick Diaz versus Anderson Silva to remember the power of impulse.
The bad thing is that somebody has to lose.

Cris "Cyborg" Justino is doing her best to get Ronda Rousey's attention.
The former Strikeforce and current Invicta featherweight champion will defend her title against Charmaine Tweet at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Feb. 27.
That's just one night before Justino's nemesis, UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, defends her title at Staples Center, just 1.8 miles down the road from the Shrine, against undefeated Cat Zingano.
But according to Rousey, she's not going think about Cyborg until she has to.

The UFC was willing to create an interim middleweight title after Chris Weidman pulled out from a UFC 184 bout with Vitor Belfort due to an injury, but the Brazilian declined to face Lyoto Machida on Feb. 28.
On his Facebook page, "The Phenom" explained his decision, saying he would agree to fight Machida or anyone else if the UFC strips Weidman of his title.

For many years, Anderson Silva was considered the best MMA fighter in the world, a mythical position that most feel belongs now to Jon Jones.
Right after Silva's fight with Nick Diaz ended on Saturday, he climbed over the top of the cage and landed right in from of Jones. There will be almost surely be no match between the two, who have both said they would have no interest in such a fight. But it apparently was to show respect to Jones as the new top star of the sport.

LAS VEGAS -- The most important part of Nick Diaz's game is boxing, so it didn't exactly help him that a left arm injury forced him to stop punching two weeks ago.
Diaz said the arm injury was not an issue in his unanimous decision loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 183 on Saturday night here at MGM Grand. But Diaz said he did need a cortisone shot and a UFC doctor told him that it could require surgery. Diaz might have bone spurs or bone fragments in his elbow, according to X-rays.

Miesha Tate kept her title hopes alive with a dramatic come-from-behind win over Sara McMann at UFC 183, rallying back from a listless first round to outgrapple the Olympic wrestler and nearly send McMann home early with a pair of tight guillotine attempts. And to make matters more impressive, Tate did all of her best work after being badly injured in the fight's opening minutes.